They took drastic action in dropping Marcus Trescothick for the first time but by the end it was Pakistan who had the problems after a lacklustre effort in the field.

Their batsmen were up against it earlier when Jon Lewis found plenty of away swing to have Mohammad Hafeez and Younis Khan caught in the slips.

Sajid Mahmood was also on target early on, trapping the dangerous Shahid Afridi plumb lbw moments after substitute Rikki Clarke dropped him at third man off Lewis.

Pakistan struggled to break free of the shackles imposed by Yardy and fellow spinner Dalrymple, with Mohammad Yousuf desperately lacking timing before chopping a quicker ball from Yardy on to his stumps.

Yardy's fine work was overshadowed by Razzaq's big hitting

Shoaib Malik lobbed a return catch off the Sussex left-armer two balls later and Inzamam went the same way to Dalrymple (1-38).

When Yardy had Kamran Akmal caught at slip by Strauss, England were in control but Razzaq made the skipper pay for a strange bowling change.

Mahmood returned instead of Stuart Broad, who had just removed Shoaib Akhtar, and 26 runs came in the penultimate over bowled by the Lancashire paceman.

Lewis did not fare much better as Razzaq thrashed three more maximums and it could have got worse for England when Inzamam thought he had cleanly taken Strauss' edge off Asif.

The batsman stood his ground and, once the replays proved inconclusive, tormented Pakistan further with an array of cuts, pulls and drives to pick up 10 boundaries.